fishing

Sustainable fishing?
Old habits die hard and a lifetime habit of some sections of the MSM is to talk up the EU. In an ideal world the average person would get the facts from a news' source and make up their own mind. However, it's not like that. Honest reporting and unbiased reporting don't always come together. The EU has been a cause to support by both the BBC and the Guardian as well as a number of other subjects now broadly referred to as 'environmental', where hitherto these were simply common sense. The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is now getting a second look due to its mad, bad and stupid discard policy. This is related to quotas for species, so fish from another species, although netted and on the deck of the trawler often have to be thrown back.

The bulk of journalists now working for the BBC and Guardian would be too young to remember the upset caused by Edward Heath giving up the UK's fishing grounds. So to them the EU has been nothing but good; I know of several graduates who while at university have been told that the EU has 'prevented wars'. I know of one who tried to suggest that NATO played a role here and was given a very hard time by the lecturer; but such distortion no longer seems shocking following the University of East Anglia's climate research malpractice.

As we wrote on our sister site, the independence index in an article about the attitudes found in the groups in opposition to the EU called, 'Anti EU-groups, and how to spot them:

They have a total, and touching, assumption that we all share the same set of beliefs, for example that we are all royalists. It is beyond their reach to imagine that any one would want an independent republic.

The RSPB (Royal society for the Protection of Birds) and other organisations sent in a 30,000 signature petition to 10 Downing Street requesting a Marine Bill in the Queen's speech. I regret to inform you that no such Bill has been read out and that consequently our seas will remain in a parlous state for the foreseeable furure. There is a Marine (draft) Bill which will involve yet another consultation but probably no action. The Common Fisheries Policy encourages commercial fishing by big business both in EU, and world waters. Many other countries such as Japan, Russia and South Korea are just as bad. The difference is that the EU claims huge environmental kudos. It is a disaster but there is one ray of hope, this is New Zealand.